In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood

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The Origin of Asteroids and Meteoroids

SUMMARY: The “fountains of the great deep” launched rocks as well as muddy water. As rocks moved farther from Earth, Earth’s gravity became less significant to them, and the gravity of nearby rocks became increasingly significant. Consequently, many rocks, assisted by their mutual gravity and surrounding clouds of water vapor, merged to become asteroids. Isolated rocks in space are meteoroids. Drag forces caused by water vapor and thrust forces produced by the radiometer effect concentrated asteroids in what is now the asteroid belt. The so-called mavericks of the solar system (asteroids, meteoroids, and comets) resulted from the same event.

Asteroids, also known as minor planets, are rocky bodies orbiting the Sun. Their orbits usually lie between those of Mars and Jupiter, a region called the asteroid belt. The largest asteroid, Ceres, is almost 600 miles in diameter and has about one-fourth the volume of all asteroids combined. Orbits of almost 30,000 asteroids have been calculated. Many more asteroids have been detected, some less than 40 feet in diameter. A few that cross the Earth’s orbit would do great damage if they ever collided with Earth.

Two explanations are given for the origin of asteroids: (1) they were produced by an exploded planet, and (2) a planet failed to evolve completely. Experts recognize the problems with each explanation and are puzzled. The hydroplate theory offers a simple and complete—but quite different—solution that also answers other questions.

Exploded-Planet Explanation. Smaller asteroids are more numerous than larger asteroids, a pattern typical of fragmented bodies. Seeing this pattern led to the early belief that asteroids are remains of an exploded planet.

 
Meteorites, Meteors, and Meteoroids

In space, solid bodies smaller than an asteroid but larger than a molecule are called “meteoroids.” They are renamed “meteors” as they travel through Earth’s atmosphere, and “meteorites” if they hit the ground.
Later, scientists realized that all the fragments combined would not make up one small planet.3 Besides, too much energy is needed to explode and scatter even the smallest planet.  [See Item 21 on page 225.]

Failed-Planet Explanation.  The currently popular explanation for asteroids is that they are bodies that did not merge to become a planet. Never explained is how, in nearly empty space, matter merged to form these rocky bodies in the first place.4 Also, because only vague explanations have been given for how planets formed, claiming to understand how one planet failed to form lacks credibility. [See Items 43–46 on pages 24–26. In general, orbiting rocks do not merge to become either planets or asteroids. Special conditions are required, as explained on page 211 and Endnote 21 on page 231.] Today, collisions and near collisions fragment and scatter asteroids, just the opposite of this “failed-planet explanation.” In fact, during the 4,600,000,000 years evolutionists say asteroids have existed, asteroids would have had so many collisions that they should be much more fragmented than they are today.5

Hydroplate Explanation.  Asteroids are composed of rocks expelled from Earth. The size distribution of asteroids does show that at least part of a planet fragmented. Although an energy source is not available to explode and disperse an entire Earth-size planet, the “fountains of the great deep” with its supercritical water (explained on page 112), could have launched one 2,300th of the Earth—the mass of all asteroids combined. Astronomers have tried to describe the exploded planet, not realizing they were standing on 99.95% of it—too close to see it.6

As flood waters escaped from the subterranean chambers, pillars, forced to carry more and more of the weight of the overlying crust, were crushed and broken. Also, the almost 10-mile-high walls of the rupture were unstable, because rock is not strong enough to support a cliff more than 5 miles high. As lower portions of the walls were crushed, large blocks7 were swept up and launched by the jetting fountains. Unsupported rock in the top 5 miles also fragmented. The smaller the rock, the faster it accelerated and the farther it went, just as a rapidly flowing stream carries smaller dirt particles faster and farther.

Water droplets in the fountains partially evaporated and quickly froze. Large rocks had large spheres of influence (page 211) which grew as the rocks traveled away from Earth. Larger rocks became “seeds” around which other rocks and ice collected as spheres of influence expanded. Spheres of influence grew even more as mass concentrated around the “seeds.”  Clumps of rocks became asteroids.

Question 1: Why did some clumps of rocks and ice in space become asteroids and others become comets?

Imagine living in a part of the world where heavy frost settled each night, but the Sun shone daily. After many decades, would the countryside be buried in hundreds of feet of frost?

The answer depends on several things besides the obvious need for a large source of water. If dark rocks initially covered the ground, the Sun would heat them during the day. Frost from the previous night would tend to evaporate. However, if the sunlight was dim or the frost was thick (thereby reflecting more sunlight during the day), little frost would evaporate. More frost would accumulate the next night.  Frost thickness would increase every 24 hours.

Now imagine living on a newly formed asteroid. Its spin would give you day-night cycles. After sunset, surface temperatures would plummet toward nearly absolute zero (-460°F), because asteroids do not have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere for long. Without an atmosphere to insulate the asteroid, the day’s heat would quickly radiate, unimpeded, into outer space. Conversely, when the Sun rose, its rays would have no atmosphere to warm, so temperatures at the asteroid’s surface would rise rapidly.

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As the “fountains of the great deep” launched rocks and water droplets, evaporation in space dispersed an “ocean” of water molecules and other gases throughout the inner solar system. Gas molecules that struck the cold side of your spinning asteroid would become frost.8 Sunlight would usually be dim on rocks in larger, more elongated orbits. Therefore, little frost would evaporate during the day, and the frost’s thickness would increase. Your “world” would become a comet. However, if your “world” orbited relatively near the Sun, its rays would evaporate each night’s frost, so your “world” would remain an asteroid.

Heavier rocks could not be launched with as much velocity as smaller particles (dirt, water droplets, and smaller rocks). The heavier rocks merged to become asteroids, while the smaller particles, primarily water, merged to become comets, which generally have larger orbits.  No “sharp line” separates asteroids and comets.

Question 2: Wasn’t asteroid Eros found to be primarily a large, solid rock?

A pile of dry sand here on Earth cannot maintain a slope greater than about 30 degrees. If it were steeper, the sand grains would roll downhill. Likewise, a pile of dry pebbles or rocks on an asteroid cannot have a slope exceeding about 30 degrees. However, 4% of Eros’ surface exceeds this slope, so some scientists concluded that much of Eros must be a large, solid rock. This conclusion overlooks the possibility that ice is present between some rocks and acts as a weak glue—as predicted above. Ice in asteroids would also explain their low density. Endnote 7 gives another reason why asteroids are probably flying rock piles.

Question 3: Objects launched from Earth should travel in elliptical, cometlike orbits. How could rocky bodies launched from Earth become concentrated in almost circular orbits about 2.8 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun?

Gases, such as water vapor and its components,9 were abundant in the inner solar system for many years after the flood. Hot gas molecules striking each asteroid’s hot side were repelled with great force. This jetting action was like air rapidly escaping from a balloon, applying a thrust in a direction opposite to the escaping gas. Cold molecules striking each asteroid’s cold side produced less jetting. This jetting action, efficiently powered by solar energy, helped concentrate asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.10 [See Figures 130 and 131.]

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Figure 130: Radial Thrust and Drag Acted on Asteroids. (Sun, asteroid, gas molecules, and orbit are not to scale.) The “fountains of the great deep” launched rocks and muddy water from Earth. The larger rocks, assisted by water vapor and other gases within the spheres of influence of these rocks, captured other rocks and ice particles. Those growing bodies that were primarily rocks became asteroids.

The Sun heats an asteroid’s near side, while the far side radiates its heat into cold outer space. Therefore, large temperature differences exist on opposite sides of each rocky, orbiting body. The slower the body spins, the darker the body,11 and the closer it is to the Sun, the greater the temperature difference. (For example, temperatures on the sunny side of our Moon reach a searing 260°F, while on the dark side temperatures can drop to a frigid -280°F.) Also, gas molecules (small blue circles) between the Sun and asteroid, especially those coming from very near the Sun, are hotter and faster than those on the far side of an asteroid. Hot gas molecules hitting the hot side of an asteroid bounce off with much higher velocity and momentum than cold gas molecules bouncing off the cold side. Those impacts slowly expanded asteroid orbits until too little gas remained in the inner solar system to provide much thrust. The closer an asteroid was to the Sun, the greater the outward thrust. Gas molecules, densely concentrated near Earth’s orbit, created a drag on asteroids. My computer simulations have shown how gas, throughout the inner solar system for years after the flood, herded asteroids into a tight region near Earth’s orbital plane—an asteroid belt. Thrust primarily expanded the orbits. Drag circularized orbits and reduced their angles of inclination.

Figure 131: The Radiometer Effect. This well-known novelty, called a radiometer, demonstrates the unusual thrust that pushed asteroids into their present orbits. Sunlight warms the dark side of each vane more than the light side. The partial vacuum inside the bulb approaches that found in outer space, so gas molecules travel relatively long distances before striking other molecules. Gas molecules bounce off the hotter, black side with greater velocity than off the colder, white side. This turns the vanes away from the dark side.

The black side also radiates heat faster when it is warmer than its surroundings. This can be demonstrated by briefly placing the radiometer in a freezer. There the black side cools faster, making the white side warmer than the black, so the vanes turn away from the white side. In summary, the black side gains heat faster when in a hot environment and loses heat faster when in a cold environment. Higher gas pressure always pushes on the warmer side.

Question 4: Could the radiometer effect push asteroids 1–2 astronomical units (AU) farther from the Sun?

Each asteroid began as a swarm of particles orbiting each other within a large sphere of influence. Because a swarm’s volume was quite large, the radiometer pressure acted over a large area, so the thrust force was large. Because the volume’s density was small, the swarm rapidly accelerated—much like a feather placed in a gentle breeze. Also, the Sun’s gravity 93,000,000 miles from the Sun (the Earth-Sun distance) is 1,600 times weaker than Earth’s gravity here on Earth.12 So pushing a swarm of rocks and debris farther from the Sun was surprisingly easy, especially in the frictionless environment of space.

Question 5:  Why are 4% of meteorites almost entirely iron and nickel? Also, why do meteorites rarely contain quartz, which constitutes about 27% of granite?

Pillars were formed in the subterranean chamber when the thicker portions of the crust were squeezed downward onto the chamber floor. Twice daily, for centuries, these pillars were stretched and compressed by tides in the subterranean water. This gigantic heating process steadily raised pillar temperatures. [See “What Triggered the Flood?” on page 300.] As explained in Figure 132, temperatures eventually reached 1,300°F., sufficient to melt quartz and allow iron and nickel to settle downward and become concentrated in the pillar tips. (Quartz, the first major mineral in granite to melt, would dissolve or drip into the subterranean water.) A similar gravitational settling process concentrated iron and nickel in the Earth’s core.  [See “Melting the Inner Earth” on page 356.]

Evolutionists have great difficulty explaining iron-nickel meteorites. First, everyone recognizes that a powerful heating mechanism must first melt at least some of the parent body from which the iron-nickel meteorites came, so iron and nickel can sink and be concentrated. How this could have occurred in the weak gravity of extremely cold asteroids has defied explanation.14 Second, the concentrated iron and nickel, which evolutionists visualize in the core of a large asteroid, must then be excavated and blasted into space. Available evidence shows this has not happened.15

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Figure 132: Hot Meteorites. Most iron-nickel meteorites display Widmanstätten patterns. That is, if an iron-nickel meteorite is cut and its face is polished and then etched with acid, the surface has the strange crisscross pattern shown above. This indicates that temperatures throughout those meteorites were once 1,300°F.13 Why were so many meteoroids, drifting in cold space, at one time so uniformly hot? An impact would not produce such uniformity, nor would a blowtorch. The heating a meteor experiences in passing through the atmosphere is barely felt more than a fraction of an inch beneath the surface. If radioactive decay provided the heat, certain daughter products should be present; they are not. Question 5 explains how these high temperatures were probably reached.
 

Question 6:  Aren’t meteoroids chips from asteroids?

This commonly-taught idea is based on an error in logic. Asteroids and meteoroids have some similarities, but that does not mean one came from the other. Maybe a common event produced both asteroids and meteoroids.

Also, three major discoveries suggest that meteoroids came not from asteroids, but from Earth.

 
Two Interpretations

With a transmission electron microscope, Japanese scientist Kazushige Tomeoka identified several major events in the life of one meteorite. Initially, this meteorite was part of a much larger parent body orbiting the Sun. The parent body had many thin cracks, through which mineral-rich water cycled. Extremely thin mineral layers were deposited on the walls of these cracks. These deposits, sometimes hundreds of layers thick, contained calcium, magnesium, carbonates, and other chemicals. Mild thermal metamorphism in this rock shows that temperatures increased before it experienced some final cracks and was blasted into space.26

Hydroplate Interpretation.  Earth was the parent body of all meteorites, most of which came from pillars. [Pages 300–304 explain how, why, when, and where pillars formed.] Twice a day before the flood, tides in the subterranean water compressed and stretched these thin pillars. Compressive heating occurred and cracks developed. Just as water circulates through a submerged sponge that is squeezed and stretched, mineral laden water circulated through cracks in pillars for years before they broke up. Pillar fragments, launched into space by the fountains of the great deep, became meteoroids. [The presence of calcium, magnesium, and carbonates in the water helps explain why Earth has so much limestone.  See pages 170–175.]  In summary, water did it.

Tomeoka’s (and Most Evolutionists’) Interpretation. Impacts on an asteroid generated many cracks in the rock that was to become this meteorite. Ice was deposited on the asteroid. Impacts melted the ice, allowing liquid water to circulate through the cracks and deposit hundreds of layers of magnesium, calcium, and carbonate bearing minerals. A final impact blasted rocks from this asteroid into space.  In summary, impacts did it.

1. In the mid-1970s, the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft traveled out through the asteroid belt. NASA expected that the particle detection experiments on board would find 10 times more meteoroids in the belt than are present near Earth’s orbit.16 Surprisingly, the number of meteoroids diminished as the asteroid belt was approached.17 This showed that meteoroids are not coming from asteroids but from nearer Earth’s orbit.

2. A faint glow of light, called “zodiacal light,” extends from the orbit of Venus out to the asteroid belt. The light is reflected sunlight bouncing off dust-size particles. This lens-shaped swarm of particles orbits the Sun, near Earth’s orbital plane. (On dark, moonless nights, zodiacal light can be seen in the spring in the western sky after sunset and in the fall in the eastern sky before sunrise.) Debris chipped off asteroids would have a wide range of sizes and would not be so uniformly fine. Debris expelled by comets would have elongated and inclined orbits. However, such fine dust particles, so near the Earth's orbit and orbital plane, could be eroded debris launched from Earth by the fountains of the great deep.

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 3. Many meteorites have remanent magnetism, so they must have come from a larger magnetized body. Eros, the only asteroid on which a spacecraft has landed and taken magnetic measurements, has no net magnetic field. If this is true of other asteroids as well, meteorites probably did not come from asteroids.18 If asteroids are flying rock piles, as it now appears, any magnetic fields of the randomly oriented rocks would be largely self-cancelling, so the asteroid would have no net magnetic field. Therefore, instead of coming from asteroids, meteorites likely came from a magnetized body such as a planet. Because Earth’s magnetic field is a hundred times greater than all other rocky planets combined, meteorites probably came from Earth.

Remanent magnetism decays, so meteorites must have recently broken away from their parent magnetized body. Those who believe meteorites were chipped off asteroids, say this happened millions of years ago.

Figure 133: Shatter Cone. When a large, crater-forming meteorite strikes the Earth, a shock wave radiates outward from the impact point. The passing shock wave breaks the rock surrounding the crater into meteorite-size fragments having distinctive patterns called shatter cones. (Until shatter cones were associated with impact craters by Robert S. Dietz in 1969, impact craters were often difficult to identify.)

If large impacts on asteroids launched asteroid fragments toward Earth as meteorites, a few meteorites should have shatter cone patterns. None have ever been reported. Therefore, meteorites are probably not derived from asteroids. Likewise, impacts have not launched meteorites from Mars.  [For other reasons, see page 248.]

Question 7: Does other evidence support this hypothesis that asteroids and meteoroids came from Earth?

Yes.  Here are fourteen other observations that either support the proposed explanation or are inconsistent with current theories on the origin of asteroids and meteoroids:

1. Meteorites and meteoroids contain the same materials as the Earth’s crust.27 Some meteorites contain very dense elements, such as nickel and iron. Those heavy elements seem compatible only with the denser rocky planets: Mercury, Venus, and Earth—Earth being the densest.

A few asteroid densities have been calculated. They are generally low, ranging from 1.2 to 3.3 gm/cm3. The higher densities match those of the Earth’s crust. The lower densities imply the presence of empty space between loosely held rocks or something light such as water ice.28

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 2. Meteorites contain different varieties (isotopes) of the chemical element molybdenum, each isotope having a slightly different atomic weight. If, as evolutionists teach, a swirling gas and dust cloud mixed for millions of years and produced the Sun, its planets, and meteorites, then each meteorite should have about the same combination of these molybdenum isotopes. Because this is not the case,30 meteorites did not come from a swirling dust cloud or any source that mixed for millions of years.

3. Metamorphosed minerals in most meteorites31 and on some asteroids32 show that those bodies reached extremely high temperatures, despite a lifetime in the “deep freeze” of outer space. Radioactive decay within such relatively small bodies could not have produced the necessary heating, because too much heat would have escaped from their surfaces. Stranger still, liquid water altered some meteorites33 while they and their parent bodies were heated—sometimes heated multiple times.34

Impacts in space are sometimes proposed to explain this mysterious heating. However, an impact would only raise the temperature of a small portion of an asteroid near the point of impact. Before gravel-size fragments from an impact could become uniformly hot, they would radiate their heat into outer space.35

For centuries before the flood, heat was generated repeatedly within pillars in the subterranean water chamber. [To understand why, see the answer to Question 5 on page 242.] As the flood began, the powerful fountains of the great deep expelled fragments of these hot, crushed pillars from the Earth. Those rocks became meteoroids and asteroids.

4. Because asteroids came from Earth, they typically spin in the same direction as Earth (counterclockwise, as seen from the North). However, collisions have undoubtedly randomized the spins of many smaller asteroids in the last few thousand years.36

5. Some asteroids have captured one or more moons. [See Figure 129.] Sometimes the “moon” and asteroid are similar in size. Impacts would not create equal-size fragments that could capture each other.37 The only conceivable way for this to happen is if a potential moon enters an asteroid’s expanding sphere of influence while traveling about the same speed and direction as the asteroid. If even a thin gas surrounds the asteroid, the moon will be drawn closer to the asteroid, preventing the moon from being stripped away later. An “exploded planet” would disperse relatively little gas. The “failed planet explanation” meets none of the requirements. The hydroplate theory satisfies all requirements.   

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Figure 134: Chondrules. The central chondrule above is 2.2 millimeters in diameter, the size of this circle: o. This picture was taken in reflected light. Meteorites containing chondrules can be thinly sliced and polished, allowing light from below to pass through the thin slice and into the microscope. Such light becomes polarized as it passes through the minerals. The resulting colors identify minerals in and around the chondrules. [Meteorite from Hammada al Hamra Plateau, Libya.]

Chondrules [CON drools] are strange, spherical, BB-size objects found in 86% of all meteorites. To understand the origin of meteorites we must also understand how chondrules formed.

Their spherical shape and texture show they were once molten, but to melt chondrules requires temperatures exceeding 3,000°F. How could chondrules get that hot without melting the surrounding rock which usually has a lower melting temperature? Because chondrules contain volatile substances that would have bubbled out of melted rock, chondrules must have melted and cooled quite rapidly.19 By one estimate, melting occurred in about one-hundredth of a second.20

The standard explanation for chondrules is that small pieces of rock, moving in outer space billions of years ago, before the Sun and Earth formed, suddenly and mysteriously melted. These liquid droplets quickly cooled, solidified, and then were encased inside the rock that now surrounds them. Such vague conditions, hidden behind a veil of space and time, make it nearly impossible to test this explanation in a laboratory. Scientists recognize that no satisfactory explanation has been given for rapidly melting or cooling chondrules or for encasing them somewhat uniformly in rocks, which are sometimes radiometrically older than the chondrules.21 As one scientist wrote, “The heat source of chondrule melting remains uncertain. We know from the petrological data that we are looking for a very rapid heating source, but what?”22

Frequently, minerals grade (gradually change) across the boundaries between chondrules and surrounding material.23 This suggests that chondrules melted while encased in rock. If so, the heating sources must have been brief and localized near the center of what are now chondrules. But how could this have happened?

The most common mineral in chondrules is olivine.24 Deep rocks contain many BB-size pockets of olivine. Pillars within the subterranean water probably had similar pockets. Pillars were forced to carry more and more of the crust’s weight as the subterranean water escaped from under the crust. As olivine is compressed more and more, it will suddenly change into another mineral, called spinel [spin EL], and shrink in volume by about 10%.25 (Material surrounding each pocket would not suddenly shrink.)

Tiny, collapsing pockets of olivine transforming into spinel would generate great heat, for two reasons. First, the transformation is exothermic; that is, it releases heat chemically. Second, it releases heat mechanically, by friction. Here’s why. At the atomic level, each pocket would collapse in many stages—much like falling dominos or the section-by-section crushing of a giant scaffolding holding up an overloaded roof. Within each pocket, as each microscopic crystal slid over adjacent crystals at these extreme pressures, melting would occur along sliding surfaces. The remaining solid structures in the olivine pocket would then carry the entire compressive load—quickly collapsing and melting other parts of the “scaffolding.”

The fountains of the great deep expelled pieces of crushed pillars into outer space where they rapidly cooled. Their tumbling action, especially in the weightlessness of space, would have prevented volatiles from bubbling out of the encased liquid pockets within each rock. In summary, chondrules are a by product of the mechanism that produced meteorites—a rapid process that started under the Earth’s crust as the flood began.

Also, tidal effects, as described on pages 347–350, limit the lifetime of asteroid moons to about 100,000 years.38 This fact and the problems in capturing a moon caused evolutionist astronomers to scoff at early reports that some asteroids have moons.   

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Figure 135: Peanut Asteroids. The fountains of the great deep expelled dirt, rocks, and considerable water from Earth. About half of that water quickly evaporated into the vacuum of space. Each gas molecule became an orbiting body in the solar system. Asteroids then formed as explained on pages 240–244.

Gas molecules captured by asteroids or released by icy asteroids became atmospheres. Asteroids with thick atmospheres sometimes captured smaller asteroids as moons. If an atmosphere remained long enough, the moon would loose altitude and gently merge with the low-gravity asteroid, forming a peanut-shaped asteroid. (We see merging when a satellite or spacecraft reenters Earth’s atmosphere, slowly loses altitude, and eventually falls to Earth.)  Without an atmosphere, merging becomes almost impossible.

Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft orbited asteroid Itokawa (shown above) for two months in 2005. Scientists studying Itokawa concluded that it consists of two smaller asteroids that merged. Donald Yeomans, a mission scientist and member of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, admitted, “It’s a major mystery how two objects each the size of skyscrapers could collide without blowing each other to smithereens. This is especially puzzling in a region of the solar system where gravitational forces would normally involve collision speeds of 2 km/sec.43” The mystery is easily solved when one understands the role that water played in the origin of comets and asteroids.

Notice, a myriad of rounded boulders, some 150 feet in diameter, litter Itokawa’s surface. High velocity water produces rounded boulders; an exploded planet would produce angular rocks.

6. A few asteroids suddenly develop comet tails, so are considered both asteroid and comet. The hydroplate theory says that asteroids are weakly joined piles of rocks and ice. If such a pile cracked slightly, perhaps due to an impact by space debris, exposed internal ice would suddenly vent water vapor into the vacuum of space as with a comet—just as observed. The hydroplate theory explains why comets are so similar to asteroids.

7. A few comets are orbiting in the asteroid belt. Their tails lengthen as they approach perihelion and recede as they approach aphelion. However, it is virtually impossible for comets to have formed beyond the planet Pluto and end up in nearly circular orbits in the asteroid belt.39 Also, that near the Sun, the comets’ ice should have dissipated billions of years ago. Obviously, these comets did not form in the outer solar system. Only the hydroplate theory explains how comets could be in the asteroid belt.

8. If asteroids passing near Earth came from the asteroid belt, too many of them have diameters less than 50 meters,40 and too many have circular orbits.41 However, we would expect this if the rocks that formed asteroids were launched from Earth.

9. Computer simulations, both forward and backward in time, show that asteroids traveling near Earth have a maximum expected lifetime of only about a million years. They “quickly” collide with the Sun.42 This raises doubts that all asteroids began 4,600,000,000 years ago as evolutionists claim—4,600 times longer than the expected lifetime of near-Earth asteroids.

10. Asteroids 3753 Cruithne and 2000 AA29 are traveling companions of Earth.44 They delicately oscillate, in a horseshoe pattern, around two points that lie 60° (as viewed from the Sun) forward and 60° behind the Earth but on Earth’s nearly circular orbit. These points, predicted by Lagrange in 1764 and called Lagrange points, are stable places where an object would not move relative to the Earth and Sun if it could once occupy either point going at zero velocity relative to the Earth and Sun. But how could a slowly moving object ever reach, or get near, either point? Most likely, it barely escaped from Earth.

Furthermore, Asteroid 3753 could not have been in its present orbit for long, because it is so easy for a passing body to gravitationally perturb it out of its stable niche. Venus will pass near this asteroid 8,000 years from now and may dislodge it.45

11. Jupiter also has two Lagrange points on its nearly circular orbit. The first, called L4, lies 60° (as seen from the Sun) in the direction of Jupiter’s motion. The second, called L5, lies 60° behind Jupiter.

Visualize planets and asteroids as large and small marbles rolling in orbitlike paths around the Sun on a very large frictionless table. At each Lagrange point is a bowl shaped depression that moves along with each planet. Because there is no friction, small marbles (asteroids) that roll down into a bowl normally pick up enough speed to roll back out. However, if a chance gravitational encounter slowed one marble after it first entered a bowl, it might not exit the bowl. Marbles trapped in a bowl would normally stay 60° ahead of or behind their planet, gently rolling around near the bottom of their moving bowl.

One might think an asteroid is just as likely to get trapped in Jupiter’s leading bowl as its trailing bowl—a 50–50 chance, as with the flip of a coin. Surprisingly, 1068 asteroids are in Jupiter’s leading (L4) bowl, but only 681 are in the trailing bowl.57 If an asteroid is just as likely to get trapped at L4 as L5, this shouldn’t happen in a trillion trials! What concentrated asteroids near the L4 Lagrange point?

According to the hydroplate theory, asteroids formed near Earth’s orbit. Then, the radiometer effect spiraled them outward, toward the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Some spiraled out to Jupiter’s circular orbit. In overtaking Jupiter, they would have passed near both L4 and L5. Jupiter’s huge gravity would have slowed those asteroids that were moving away from Jupiter but toward L4. That braking action would have allowed some asteroids to settle into the L4 bowl. Conversely, asteroids that approached L5 were accelerated toward Jupiter, so even if they entered the L5 bowl, they would quickly be pulled out by Jupiter’s gravity. The surprising excess of asteroids near Jupiter’s leading Lagrange point is what we would expect based on the hydroplate theory.

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 12. As explained in “Shallow Meteorites” on page 35, meteorites are almost always found surprisingly near Earth’s surface. The one known exception is in southern Sweden, where 40 meteorites and thousands of grain-size fragments of one particular type of meteorite have been found at different depths in a few limestone quarries. The standard explanation is that all these meteorites somehow struck this same small area over a 1–2-million-year period about 480 million years ago.58

A more likely explanation is that some meteorites, not launched with enough velocity to escape Earth during the flood, fell back to Earth. One or more meteorites fragmented on reentering Earth’s atmosphere. The pieces landed in mushy, recently-deposited limestone layers in southern Sweden.

13. Light spectra (detailed color patterns, much like a long bar code) from certain asteroids in the outer asteroid belt imply the presence of organic compounds, especially kerogen, a coal-tar residue.59 No doubt the kerogen came from plant life. Life as we know it could not survive in such a cold region of space, but common organic matter launched from Earth could have been preserved.

14. Many asteroids are reddish and have light characteristics showing the presence of iron.60 On Earth, reddish rocks almost always imply iron oxidized (rusted) by oxygen gas. Today, oxygen is rare in outer space. If iron on asteroids is oxidized, what was the source of the oxygen? Answer: Water molecules, surrounding and impacting asteroids, dissociated (broke apart), releasing oxygen. That oxygen then combined chemically with iron on the asteroid’s surface, giving the reddish color.

Mars, often called the red planet, derives its red color from oxidized iron. Again, oxygen contained in water vapor launched from Earth during the flood, probably accounts for Mars’ red color.

 
Are Some Meteorites from Mars?

Widely publicized claims have been made that 24 meteorites from Mars have been found. A few scientists also proposed that one of these meteorites, named ALH84001, contained fossils of primitive life. Later study rejected that claim.

The wormy-looking shapes discovered in a meteorite from [supposedly] Mars turned out to be purely mineralogical and never were alive.74

The 24 meteorites are presumed to have come from the same place, because they contain similar ratios of three types of oxygen: oxygen weighing 16, 17, and 18 atomic mass units. (That presumption is not necessarily true, is it?) A chemical argument then indirectly links one of those meteorites to Mars, but the link is more tenuous than most realize.75 That single meteorite had tiny glass nodules containing dissolved gases. A few of these gases (basically the noble gases: argon, krypton, neon, and xenon) had the same relative abundances as those found in Mars’ atmosphere in 1976. (Actually, a later discovery shows that the mineralogy of these meteorites differs from that of almost all Martian rock.76) Besides, if two things are similar, it does not mean that one came from the other. Similarity in the relative abundances of the noble gases in Mars’ atmosphere and in one meteorite may be because those gases originated in Earth’s preflood subterranean chamber. Rocks and water from the subterranean chamber may have transported those gases to Mars.

Could those 24 meteorites have come from Mars? To escape the gravity of Mars requires a launch velocity of 3 miles per second. Additional velocity is then needed to transfer to an orbit intersecting Earth, 34–236 million miles away. Supposedly, one or more asteroids slammed into Mars and blasted off millions of meteoroids. Millions are needed, because less than one in a million77 would ever hit Earth, be large enough to survive reentry, be found, be turned over to scientists, and be analyzed in detail. Besides, if meteorites can come to Earth from Mars, many more should have come from the Moon—but haven’t.78

For an impact suddenly to accelerate any solid from rest to a radial velocity of 3 miles per second requires such extreme shock pressures that much of the material will melt, if not vaporize.79 All 24 meteorites should at least show shock effects. Some do not. Also, Mars should have at least six giant craters if such powerful blasts occurred, because six different launch dates are needed to explain the six age groupings the meteorites fall into (based on evolutionary dating methods). Such craters are hard to find, and large, recent impacts on Mars should have been rare.

Then there are energy questions. Almost all impact energy is lost as shock waves and ultimately as heat. Little energy remains to lift rocks off Mars. Even with enough energy, the fragments must be large enough to pass through Mars’ atmosphere. To see the difficulty, imagine throwing a ball high into the air. Then visualize how hard it would be to throw a handful of dust that high. Atmospheric drag, even in Mars’ thin atmosphere, absorbs too much of the smaller particles’ kinetic energy. Finally, for large particles to escape Mars, the expelling forces must be focused, as occurs in a gun barrel or rocket nozzle. For best results, this should be aimed straight up, to minimize the path length through the atmosphere.

A desire to believe in life on Mars produced a type of “Martian mythology” that continues today. In 1877, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli reported seeing grooves on Mars. The Italian word for groove is “canali”; therefore, many of us grew up hearing about “canals” on Mars—a mistranslation. Because canals are man-made structures, people started thinking about “little green men” on Mars.

In 1894, Percival Lowell, a wealthy, amateur astronomer with a vivid imagination, built Lowell Observatory primarily to study Mars.  Lowell published a map showing and naming Martian canals, and wrote several books: Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906), and Mars As the Abode of Life (1908). Even into the 1960s, textbooks displayed his map, described vegetative cycles on Mars, and explained how Martians may use canals to convey water from the polar ice caps to their parched cities. Few scientists publicly disagreed with the myth, even after 1949 when excellent pictures from the 200-inch telescope on Mount Palomar were available. Those of us in school before 1960 were directly influenced by such myths; virtually everyone has been indirectly influenced.

Artists, science fiction writers, and Hollywood helped fuel this “Martian mania.” In 1898, H. G. Wells wrote The War of the Worlds telling of strange-looking Martians invading Earth. In 1938, Orson Welles, in a famous radio broadcast, panicked many Americans into thinking New Jersey was being invaded by Martians. In 1975, two Viking spacecraft were sent to Mars to look for life. Carl Sagan announced shortly before the spacecraft completed their tests that he was certain life would be discovered—a reasonable conclusion, if life evolved. The prediction failed. In 1996, United States President Clinton read to a global television audience, “More than 4 billion years ago this piece of rock [ALH84001] was formed as a part of the original crust of Mars. After billions of years, it broke from the surface and began a 16-million-year journey through space that would end here on Earth.” “... broke from the surface ...”?  The myth is still alive.
Mars’ topsoil is richer in iron and magnesium than Martian rocks beneath the surface. The dusty surface of Mars also contains carbonates, such as limestone.61 Because meteorites and Earth’s subterranean water contained considerable iron, magnesium, and carbonates, it appears that Mars was heavily bombarded by meteorites and water launched from Earth’s subterranean chamber. [See “The Origin of Limestone” beginning on page 170.]

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Figure 136: Salt of the Earth. On 22 March 1998, this 2 3/4 pound meteorite landed 40 feet from boys playing basketball in Monahans, Texas. While the rock was still warm, police were called. Hours later, NASA scientists cracked the meteorite open in a clean-room laboratory, eliminating any possibility of contamination. Inside were salt (NaCl) crystals 0.1 inch (3 mm) in diameter and liquid water!46 Some of these salt crystals are shown in the blue circle, highly magnified and in true color. Bubble (B) is inside a liquid, which itself is inside a salt crystal. Eleven quivering bubbles were found in about 40 fluid pockets. Shown in the green circle is another bubble (V) inside a liquid (L). The length of the horizontal black bar represents 0.005 mm, about 1/25th the diameter of a human hair.

NASA scientists who investigated this meteorite believe it came from an asteroid, but that is highly unlikely. Asteroids, having little gravity and being in the vacuum of space, cannot sustain liquid water which is required to form salt crystals. (Earth is the only planet, indeed the only body in the solar system, that can sustain liquid water on its surface.) Nor could surface water (gas, liquid, or solid) on asteroids withstand high-velocity impacts. Even more perplexing for the evolutionist: What is the salt’s origin? Also, what accounts for the meteorite’s other contents: potassium, magnesium, iron, and calcium—elements abundant on Earth, but as far as we know, not beyond Earth? 47

Figure 40 on page 99 illustrates the origin of meteoroids. Dust-sized meteoroids often come from comets. Most larger meteoroids are rock fragments that never merged into a comet or asteroid.

Considerable evidence supports Earth as the origin of meteorites.

    * Minerals and isotopes in meteorites are remarkably similar to those on earth.27
    * Some meteorites contain sugars,48 possible cellulose,49 and salt crystals containing liquid water.50
    * Other meteorites contain limestone,51 which, on earth, forms only in liquid water. [See “The Origin of Limestone” on pages 170–175.]
    * Three meteorites contain excess amounts of left-handed amino acids52—a sign of living matter. [See “Handedness: Left and Right” on page 15.]
    * A few meteorites show that “salt-rich fluids analogous to terrestrial brines” flowed through their veins.53
    * Some meteorites have about twice the heavy hydrogen concentration as Earth’s water today.54 As explained in the preceding chapter, this heavy hydrogen probably came from the subterranean chambers.
    * About 86% of all meteorites contain chondrules which are best explained by the hydroplate theory. [See “Chondrules” on page 245.]
    * Seventy-eight types of living bacteria have been found in two meteorites after extreme precautions were taken to avoid contamination.55 Bacteria need liquid water to live, grow, and reproduce. Obviously, liquid water does not exist inside meteoroids whose temperatures in outer space are near absolute zero (-460°F). Therefore, the bacteria must have been living in the presence of liquid water before being launched into space. Once in space, they quickly froze and became dormant. Had bacteria originated in outer space, what would they have eaten?

Meteorites containing chondrules, salt crystals, limestone, water, possible cellulose, left-handed amino acids, sugars, living bacteria, terrestrial-like brines, excess heavy hydrogen, and Earthlike patterns of minerals, isotopes, and other components56 implicate Earth as their source—and “the fountains of the great deep” as the powerful launcher.

Those who believe meteorites came from asteroids have wondered why meteorites do not have the red color of most asteroids.62 The answer is twofold: (a) meteorites did not come from asteroids, as explained on page 242, but both came from Earth, and (b) asteroids contain oxidized iron, as explained above, but meteorites are much less massive, so were unable to gravitationally attract chamber.

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Water on Mars

Water recently and briefly flowed on a small fraction of Mars63 and is now sequestered at its poles.64 These former stream beds often “originate in steep-walled amphitheaters rather than in ever smaller tributaries” as on Earth.65 Rain formed other channels.66 On Mars, drainage channels and layered strata are found at almost 200 locations—but nowhere else.67 Some channels are at high latitudes or on sloping surfaces that receive little sunlight. One set of erosion gullies is on the central peak of an impact crater!68

Figure 137: Erosion Channels on Mars. These channels frequently originate in scooped-out regions, called amphitheaters, high on a crater wall. On Earth, where water falls as rain, erosion channels begin with narrow tributaries that merge with larger tributaries and finally, rivers. Could impacts of comets or icy asteroids have formed these craters, gouged out amphitheaters, and melted the ice—each within seconds? Mars, which is much colder than Antarctica in the winter, would need a heating source, such as impacts, to produce liquid water. Endnote 69 explains how this sequence of events may have happened

Today, Mars is extremely cold, averaging 117°F below freezing. Water on Mars should be ice, not liquid water. Mars’ low atmospheric pressures would hasten freezing even more.70

Did liquid water come from below Mars’ surface or above? Most believe that subsurface water migrated up to the surface. However, this would not carve wide flood channels or erosion gullies on a crater’s central peak. Besides, the water would freeze a mile or two below the surface.71 Even volcanic eruptions on Mars would not melt enough water fast enough to release the estimated 10–1,000 million cubic meters of water per second needed to cut each stream bed.72 (This exceeds the combined flow rate of all rivers on Earth that enter an ocean.)

Water probably came from above. Soon after the flood, the radiometer effect caused asteroids to spiral out to the asteroid belt, just beyond Mars. Asteroids spiraling outward through Mars’ orbit had frequent opportunities to collide with Mars. When crater forming impacts occurred, large amounts of debris were thrown into Mars’ atmosphere. Mars’ thin atmosphere and low gravity allowed the debris to settle back to the surface in vast layers of thin sheets—strata.

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The extreme impact energy (and heat) from icy asteroids and comets bombarding Mars released water which then flowed downhill and eroded Mars’ surface. Each impact was like the bursting of a large dam here on Earth. Brief periods of intense, hot rain and localized flash floods followed.73 These Martian hydrodynamic cycles quickly “ran out of steam,” because Mars receives relatively little heat from the Sun. While the consequences were large for Mars, the total water was small by Earth’s standards—about twice the water in Lake Michigan.

Final Thoughts

As with the 24 other major features listed on page 102, we have examined the origin of asteroids and meteoroids from two directions: “cause-to-effect” and “effect-to-cause.”

Cause-to-Effect. We saw that given the assumption listed on page 110, consequences naturally followed: the fountains of the great deep erupted; large rocks, muddy water, and water vapor were launched into space; gas and gravity assembled asteroids; and gas pressure powered by the Sun’s energy (the radiometer effect) herded asteroids into the asteroid belt. Isolated rocks still moving in the solar system are meteoroids.

Effect-to-Cause. We considered fourteen effects (pages 244–247), each incompatible with current theories on the origin of asteroids and meteoroids. Each effect was evidence that many rocks and large volumes of water vapor were launched from Earth.

Portions of Part III will examine this global flood from a third direction: historical records from claimed eyewitnesses. All three perspectives reinforce each other, illuminating in different ways this catastrophic event.

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Part III: Frequently Asked Questions

Most questions concerning origins are answered in Parts I and II. Of the questions that remain, the following are some of the most frequently asked in my seminars and public presentations.  They can be read in any order.

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How Can the Study of Creation Be Scientific? p. 260
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Have New Scientific and Mathematical Tools Detected Adam and Eve? p. 261
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Because Galaxies Are Billions of Light-Years Away, Isn’t the Universe Billions of Years Old? p. 264
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Why Does the Universe Seem To Be Expanding? p. 269
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If the Sun and Stars Were Created on Day 4, What Was the Light of Day 1? p. 274
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How Old Do Evolutionists Say the Universe Is? p. 277
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What Was Archaeopteryx? p. 279
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How Accurate Is Radiocarbon Dating? p. 283
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How Could Saltwater and Freshwater Fish Survive the Flood? p. 286
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What about the Dinosaurs? p. 288
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Have Planets Been Discovered Outside the Solar System? p. 290
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Did the Flood Last 40 Days and 40 Nights? p. 292
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Is the Hydroplate Theory Consistent with the Bible? p. 293
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How Was the Earth Divided in Peleg’s Day? p. 295
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Did It Rain before the Flood? p. 298
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What Triggered the Flood? p. 300
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If God Made Everything, Who Made God? p. 305
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Did a Water Canopy Surround Earth and Contribute to the Flood? p. 306
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How Did Human “Races” Develop? p. 315
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According to the Bible, When Was Adam Created? p. 317
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Is There Life in Outer Space? p. 319
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Is There a Large Gap of Time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2? p. 320
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Is Evolution Compatible with the Bible? p. 323
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Does the New Testament Support Genesis 1–11? p. 329
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How Can Origins Be Taught in High School or College? p. 332
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What Are the Social Consequences of Belief in Evolution? p. 336
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How Can I Become Involved in This Issue? p. 339
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How Do Evolutionists Respond to What You Say? p. 341
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How Do You Respond to Common Claims of Evolutionists? p. 342
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Why Don’t Creationists Publish in Leading Science Journals? p. 344

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Figure 138: Causes and Effects. Each arrow’s tail represents a cause, and each yellow circle represents an effect. The arrow itself is the cause-to-effect relationship. Yellow circles also represent scientific evidence that to most people suggests a creation and a global flood. All of us, including students, should be free to reach our own conclusions about origins after learning the evidence and all reasonable explanations. Withholding that information in schools or misrepresenting it in the media is inexcusable.

The first cause appears to be supernatural, or beyond the natural (blue area). Evolutionists often say the yellow circles and their scientific implications cannot be presented in science classrooms, because the first cause (red circle) is supernatural. Subjects outside the natural (including biblical descriptions of creation and the flood that are so consistent with the physical evidence) are inappropriate for publicly financed science education. However, excluding what is observable and verifiable in nature, along with possible causes, is bad science, misleading, and censorship. Creation science, then, is the study of this scientific evidence.

Let me define science.

science: A field of study seeking to better understand natural phenomena through the use of observations and experiments.

Broad, but increasingly precise and concise, relationships are sought between causes and effects. These relationships, called scientific laws, help predict future phenomena and explain past events.

Notice, this does not mean the first cause must be naturalistic. It is poor logic to say that because science deals with natural, cause-and-effect relationships, the first cause must be a natural event. Furthermore, if the first cause were a natural consequence of something else, it would not be the first cause. Scientific laws can provide great insight on ultimate origins even though the first cause cannot, by definition, be duplicated. Yes, there was a beginning.  [See Items 53 and 55 beginning on page 27.]

Scientific conclusions, while never final, must be based on evidence.

scientific evidence: Something that has been observed with instruments or our senses, is verifiable, and helps support or refute possible explanations for phenomena.

All evidence in Part I of this book is based on observable, natural phenomena that others can check. To most people, this evidence implies a creation and a global flood. This does not mean the Creator (The First Cause) can be studied scientifically or that the Bible should be read in public-school science classes. (I have always opposed that.) Those who want evolution taught without the clear evidence opposing it, in effect, wish to censor a large body of scientific evidence from schools. That is wrong. Also, the consequences of a global flood have been misinterpreted as evidence for evolution, not as evidence for a flood. That misinterpretation, unfortunately, is taught as science.  [See Part II.]

Explanations other than creation or a global flood may someday be proposed that are (1) consistent with all that evidence and (2) demonstrable by repeatable, cause-and-effect relationships. Until that happens, those who ignore existing evidence are being quite unscientific. Evolutionists’ refusal to debate this subject (see page 341) and their speculations on cause-and-effect phenomena that cannot be demonstrated is also poor science, especially when much evidence opposes those speculations.

Evolutionists raise several objections. Some say, “Even though evidence may imply a sudden creation, creation is supernatural, not natural, and cannot be entertained as a scientific explanation.” Of course, no one understands scientifically how the creation occurred—how space, time, matter, and the laws of physics began. [See Figure 155 on page 334 and the paragraph preceding that figure.] Others, not disputing that the flood best explains many features on earth, object to a global flood, because the Bible—a document they wish to discredit—speaks of the flood.  Still others object to the starting point for the flood (given on page 110), but in science, all starting points are available. The key question must always be, “What best explains all the evidence?”

Also, the source of a scientific idea does not need to be scientifically derived. For example, Friedrich Kekulé discovered the ring structure of benzene in a dream in which a snake grabbed its tail. Kekulé’s discovery laid the basis for structural chemistry. Again, what is important is not the source of an idea, but whether all evidence supports it better than any other explanation. Science, after all, is a search for truth about how the physical universe behaves.  Therefore, let’s teach all the science.

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Figure 139: Language Divergence. Languages are related, as are genes. One of thousands of examples is the word for “from, of.” It exists in French (de), Italian (di), Spanish (de), Portuguese (de), and Romanian (de). So these languages, now spoken generally in southwestern Europe, are twigs on a tree branch called the Romance languages (Romance meaning Rome). This branch joins a larger branch that includes all languages derived primarily from Latin. They merge with other large branches, such as the Germanic branch that includes English, into a family called the Indo-European languages. When these and other languages are traced back in time, they appear to converge near Mount Ararat, a likely landing site of Noah’s Ark. [See pages 42–43.] Linguists admit they do not understand the origin of languages, only how languages spread.7

Virtually all cells of every living thing (plants, animals, and humans) contain tiny strands of coded information called DNA. DNA directs the cell, telling it what to produce and when. Therefore, much of your appearance and personality is determined by DNA you inherited from your parents.

In human cells, the nucleus contains 99.5% of the DNA. Half of it came from the individual’s mother and half from the father. Because both halves are shuffled together, it is difficult to identify which parent contributed any tiny segment. In other words, half of this DNA changes with each generation. However, outside the nucleus of each cell are thousands of little energy-producing components called mitochondria, each containing a circular strand of DNA. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes only from the mother. Where did she get hers? From her mother—and so on. Normally, mtDNA does not change from generation to generation.

DNA is written with an alphabet of four letters: A, G, T, and C. One copy of a person’s MtDNA is 16,559 letters long. Sometimes a mutation changes one of the letters in the mtDNA that a mother passes on to her child. These rare and somewhat random changes allow geneticists to identify families. For example, if your grandmother experienced an early mutation in her mtDNA, her children and any daughters’ children would carry the same changed mtDNA. It would differ, in general, from that in the rest of the world’s population.1

In 1987, a team at the University of California at Berkeley published a study comparing the mtDNA of 147 people from five of the world’s geographic locations.2 They concluded that all 147 had the same female ancestor. She is now called “the mitochondrial Eve.”

Where did mitochondrial Eve live? Initial research concluded it was probably Africa. Later, after much debate, it was realized that Asia and Europe were also possible origins for the mitochondrial Eve.3

From a biblical perspective, do we know where Eve lived? Because the flood was so destructive, no one knows where the Garden of Eden was.4 However, Noah’s three daughters-in-law, who lived only a dozen or so generations after Eve, began raising their families near Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey—very near the common boundary of Asia, Africa, and Europe. (Each of us can claim one of Noah’s daughters-in-law as our ever-so-great grandmother.) So it is not surprising that Asia, Africa, and Europe are candidate homes for mitochondrial Eve.

Likewise, when similar words, sounds, and grammar of the world’s most widely spoken languages are traced back in time, they also seem to originate near Ararat.5 Another convergence near eastern Turkey is found when one traces agriculture back in time.6 

When did mitochondrial Eve live? To answer this, one must know how frequently mutations occur in mtDNA. Initial estimates were based on the following faulty reasoning: “Humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. Because the mtDNA in humans and chimpanzees differ in 1,000 places, one mutation occurs about every 10,000 years.” Another erroneous approach began by assuming that Australia was first populated 40,000 years ago. The average number of mitochondrial mutations among Australian aborigines divided by 40,000 years provided another extremely slow mutation rate for mtDNA. These estimated rates, based on evolution, led to the mistaken belief that mitochondrial Eve lived 100,000–200,000 years ago.8 This surprised evolutionists who believe that our common ancestor was an apelike creature that lived 31/2 million years ago.9

A greater surprise, even disbelief, occurred in 1997, when it was announced that mutations in mtDNA occur 20 times more rapidly than had been estimated. Without assuming that humans and chimpanzees had a common ancestor 5 million years ago or that Australia was populated 40,000 years ago, mutation rates can now be determined directly by comparing the mtDNA of many mother-child pairs. Using the new, more accurate rate, mitochondrial Eve lived only about 6,500 years ago.10

Is there a “genetic Adam”? A man receives from his father a segment of DNA which lies on the Y chromosome; this makes him a male. Where did your father receive his segment? From his father. If we all descended from one man, all males should have the same Y chromosome segment—except for rare mutations.

A 1995 study of a worldwide sample of 38 men showed no changes in this segment of the Y chromosome that is always inherited from fathers. Had humans evolved and all men descended from one male who lived 500,000 years ago, each should carry about 19 mutations. Had he lived 150,000 years ago, 5.5 mutations would be expected.11 Because no changes were found, our common father probably lived only thousands of years ago. While Adam was father of all, our most recent common male ancestor was Noah.

For completeness, we must also consider another possibility. Even if we all descended from the same female, other women may have been living at the same time. Their chains of continuous female descendants may have ended; their mtDNA died out. This happens with family names. If Mary and John XYZ have no sons, their unusual last name dies out. Likewise, many other men may have lived at the same time as our “genetic Adam (or Noah).” They might have no male descendants living today. How likely is it that other men lived a few thousand years ago but left no continuous male descendants, and other women lived 6,000 years ago but left no continuous female descendants, and we end up today with a world population of 6 billion people?  Extremely remote!12

Yes, new discoveries show that we carry traces of Adam and Eve in our cells. Furthermore, our common “parents” are probably removed from us by only 200–300 generations. All humans have a common and recent bond—a family bond.  We are all cousins.